People often dread packing for trips. Trying to find space for everything and having an over-stuffed suitcase just isn't many people's idea of a good time. Virtually every traveler has encountered the inevitable battle of zipping closed an overstuffed suitcase. This is a particularly common dilemma for those traveling to colder climates, such as ski destinations, wherein the packed articles of clothing tend to be bulky, such as sweaters, jackets, ski suits, and the like.
Articles of travel for the most part comprise clothing which retains a lot of dead airspace between fibers. As such, articles of clothing take up an inordinate amount of space in a suitcase. To effectively store articles of travel, the user generally must depress the articles of travel manually or apply a force by hand to said articles of travel in order to minimize their volume. The elastic forces of the fibers of clothing does not allow the clothing to retain a minimum storage configuration without some additional manual force applied to compress them into the storage chambers of the apparatus. This can sometimes lead to loss of neatness, winkling and rumpling of clothing, a situation every traveler must contend with. To solve this problem, some ideas have been developed by others that rely on separately storing clothing in pre-made vacuum bags that can compress the clothing when a vacuum is applied to them. These bags are separate from the suitcase and have no formal shape or design intent other than storing individual clothing item in a pre-compressed state for later storage in a suitcase. Thus several such bags are need to store articles of travel effectively. Further, the separate storage bag systems are designed to be rolled into a cylinder by hand, with the stored articles of clothing in them, so that so that all air is removed from the stored articles of clothing.
All of the above causes wrinkling, rumpling and undesired results when suits and other sensitive clothes that must be stored wrinkle-free are stored using such systems. Further they do not form a simple single integrated system for storing articles of clothing, and are generally bought separately from the suitcases. Further, when such existing systems are used to store clothing in a suitcase, they can move about in the suitcase and offer no anchoring system for the clothing stored in them, so that their efficiency in keeping clothes wrinkle free during storage diminishes considerably. The present invention allows the user to have all the advantages of effective and efficient storage of clothing and other articles of travel, without the disadvantages outlined above. Further, the present invention is a simple and unified method of storing articles of travel in a suitcase without the disadvantages and inconvenience of using separate bags and containers for the same. Further, the apparatus of the present invention allows all the articles of clothing stored inside a suitcase to be kept together and neatly in the confines of the suitcase with little or no wrinkling.
Still further, airlines have begun to take restrictive measures to reduce costs. One such restriction has been the reduction of weight and size of carry on and checked baggage. Carry-on bag dimension maximum size requirements are strictly enforced, and often result in passengers having to pay additional fees to check their baggage or carry-on oversized baggage. Moreover, many airlines charge extra fees for checked bags in excess of one.
Thus, air passengers oftentimes find themselves trying to fit as many items as possible into a single piece of luggage. Oftentimes, a suitcase may be so overfilled that the passenger is either unable to close it or damages it in closing it. Thus, there exists a need in the art to maximize the available space inside a piece of luggage.
In the past, others have developed collapsible storage containers which typically include a flexible, air tight bag, and a fixture through which to evacuate excess air. When the air tight bag has been filled with one or more articles, air is evacuated through the fixture, causing the bag to collapse, thereby compressing the articles therein so that the storage container is easier to transport and store in a smaller space.
Examples of same include U.S. Pat. No. 8,459,422 to Efron which discloses luggage with integrated vacuum bags. The vacuum bags are vacuumed via a vacuum integrated on a side of the luggage which engages with a valve located on an exterior surface of the luggage. This reference discloses a piece of luggage with a vacuum-sealable compartment and on-board vacuum. Likewise, U.S. Pat. No. 8,251,192 to Milani discloses a suitcase having a vacuum system which draws air out of clothing and areas adjacent to clothing being stored in a suitcase. The vacuum is disposed within the suitcase and may be plugged into a power outlet. Further, U.S. Pat. No. 6,499,574 to Anthony discloses vacuum-packed luggage and method of manufacture. The reference discloses a vacuum packed suitcase with sealable compartments for vacuum sealing of articles. The suitcase includes a top cover and a more rigidly constructed bottom receptacle, the bottom receptacle having one or more separate article compartments separated by vertical or horizontal walls for organizing the articles of travel, the top cover and bottom receptacle being airtight when sealed over each other so that after packing the air in the compartments can be removed separately or collectively.
There is still room for improvement in the art. In this case, convenience of use, reducing bulk, more effectively packing goods in an article of luggage are needed.